The Moon, Painted in Red
by Evandar
Summary: She had seen the potential for humanity in the eyes of a monster A traitor on a bridge, painted beneath the rising moon. Oneshot. Genderswitch. Kisame/Fem!Naruto


**Disclaimer:** I do not own _Naruto_ and I am making no money from this story.

**AN:** This was part of my 2009 NaNo project that I fixed up a bit. It's...strange.

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The Moon, Painted in Red

by Evandar

The moon rose red over the water. It wasn't a genjutsu, but a natural occurrence – a reflection of the setting sun - that turned it the colour of blood.

Hoshigaki Naruto stood with her back to it, leaning against the railing of a bridge she'd last seen before it was named, dressed in a red yukata. There was a black obi around her waist, and in her hand was a stylised mask designed to look like a leering fox. Tendrils of her long blonde hair had fallen loose from its elaborate up do – secured with combs and kanzashi and coral pins – and they fell around her face and neck.

She was completely unrecognisable as the child the bridge had been named after. The Great Naruto Bridge. Had Konoha ever told Wave what they thought had happened to her? That she was dead or a missing-nin at the age of thirteen, but that it was okay because no one would mourn her?

The painter's brush strokes were deft. His eyes lingered on the hint of pale skin at her throat, and the full lips that were pulled back into a fake smile. She looked like a doll.

For a split second, her eyes met those of the man standing behind the painter. He was the man who had commissioned the painting; had asked for her to stand with her back to the beautiful moon so that he could have an image captured of her haloed in blood.

He was her husband, and for him she would do anything.

Her smile widened, stretching into something real and loving, and the feeling of being a doll vanished. She could ignore the painter and his lingering looks for now. She would ignore him so that her husband would have his little souvenir – Naruto on the Naruto Bridge, how quaint, and with a red moon behind her. Kisame was something of a poet, she knew. His ability with words was far greater than what people usually gave him credit for. They compared him to his partner – the great Uchiha prodigy; beautiful, stoic and wise Itachi – far too often. Or, perhaps, Kisame preferred for people to think that he was the brute force behind their team. That he was incapable of something as beautiful as the words he wove her.

She preferred it that way. It meant that his hidden eloquence was just between the two of them; the rest of the world could keep their wicked swordsman. She had the Kisame who thought and felt and spoke and who had, quite by accident, made her love him with all of her heart.

He could never have forced her to love him. Unlike Itachi, he wasn't built for seduction. He was large and dangerous and brutal-looking – he looked as much like a monster as the one she carried sealed within her belly, though he was far more gentle in nature than the Kyuubi no Youko.

People called them both monsters. First it had been for things out of their control; then it had been the actions they had used once they'd stopped caring if they really were monsters or not. But monsters they may have been; they were human for each other.

He could never have forced her to love him, but it had happened regardless. She had fallen in love, drowning in his chakra, her treachery, blood-stained blades and gentle words. He had given himself to her freely, and for that she couldn't help but love him more.

The festival goers swept around them like the tides. They were nameless faces, babbling voices and a kaleidoscope of bobbing lanterns and lurid kimono. Wave Country had changed so much since she'd last set foot on this bridge. Open trade had brought it wealth and promise and a future that she could distantly remember fighting for.

She'd fought a Kiri Swordsman on this bridge, and his apprentice-companion-lover. She'd first unleashed the Kyuubi on this bridge, though that level of malevolent chakra was easy for her to access now. She'd been terrified, both of the demon-in-name Zabuza, and of the demon-in-truth, but she'd been more scared of her then-team mates.

Standing on this bridge, she could still hear the furious chirping of Haku's execution. She could feel the weight of Hatake Kakashi's gaze as he tried to pick her apart over what she had summoned in a moment of panic and rage. He could hear the terrified cries of Gato's thugs as Zabuza cut a bloody swathe through their ranks with nothing but a kunai clenched between his teeth. The Seven Shinobi Swordsmen of Kirigakure were so much more than the swords they carried; that gave them their name.

She could smell the herbs she had helped Haku to pick. She could taste Sakura's fear. She could taste the tang of blood on the misty air. Sasuke's words – those he had whispered before he'd passed out and she had lost control – rang in her ears. He still hadn't achieved his greatest ambition.

She closed her eyes. This festival of death on the bridge – her bridge? She'd fought for it. She'd been the inspiration behind its name – was bringing back darker ghosts than the ones that usually lingered behind her eyelids and in the corners of her vision. They were the ghosts of hopes and dreams long dead – things that she had sacrificed in the name of something she couldn't remember. A moment of fear, of desperation and of belonging she'd experienced in a hotel room so long ago.

The ghosts were screaming for her to see them –Youko were cursed with the ability to converse with the dead – had it passed to her? – and to acknowledge them. The seal on her stomach, hidden by layers of black and red cotton, itched and burned with fire.

When she opened her eyes again, they were red instead of blue. She saw the artist frown and his brush dab at more red paint instead of the blue he'd been about to choose.

Kisame watched her, and she could see her beauty in his eyes. Her grace. The danger in the half-feral nature she had embraced.

Uzumaki Naruto – the scrap of a child, dressed in orange and fearing her own secrets – was the loudest of the ghosts that haunted her. What had happened to becoming Hokage? Why had she given up everything for a look into this man's eyes? Why had she turned her back on Sasuke and Sakura and Kakashi-sensei? What had turned her into the monster she was now?

When did the fox mask she held in her hand become a reflection of what lay within?

Uzumaki Naruto had died three years ago, and her childish dreams and fears had died with her. Hoshigaki Naruto stood in her place. She no longer feared the monster within. She no longer sought the love of a village that had abandoned her long before she had turned her back on it. She was no longer desperate for the acceptance of people who wouldn't spare her the time of day unless it was to sneer at how useless she was. She had seen the potential for humanity in the eyes of a monster, and she had jumped at the chance of grasping that potential for herself.

The ghosts – her ghost – could scream all they liked. She had no regrets. She was strong and true to her love and to her ideals. She was the Jinchuuriki of Kyuubi no Youko. She was the prize of the Akatsuki.

And now, as the final brushstroke fell, she was a painting – a portrait of the moon, painted in red.

She stepped away from the railing and moved behind the artist to study his work. Kisame placed his hand on the small of her back, and she leaned back into the touch. Her eyes faded back to blue. Kisame could always quiet the monstrous chakra that raged within her. He'd always been able to do it, even without Samehada in his grasp. Her portrait stared back at her, a barely readable expression of love and joy; despair and melancholy on her painted features.

She truly was haloed in blood. It was perfect. Red and black toned and shaded, and set by the brilliant gold of her hair and the night time pallor of her skin.

Naruto laid her head against Kisame's shoulder. Perhaps, perhaps…perhaps those ghosts deserved an audience after all.

The screams fell quiet.


End file.
